Sur quelques films “sylphiques”

Abstract

In the context of atmosphere studies, it seems of the utmost interest to examine - both technically and aesthetically - the more or less invisible active forces in the air around us, and particularly the different ways in which these forces can be made explicit. Based on the study of two contemporary photochemical experimental films - Zillertal by Jürgen Reble (1991/1997), sound of a million insects, light of a thousand stars by Tomonari Nishikawa (2014) - and a documentary from the 1980s - Chernobyl, A Chronicle of Difficult Weeks by Ukrainian filmmaker Vladimir Shevchenko (1986) -, which we define as “sylphic”, in reference to the writings of the alchemist Paracelsus, for their material capacity to make visible in striking ways the “chaos” or “vital space” of the atmospheres with which they come into contact, we propose to explore the ways in which the notion of atmosphere is becoming central to new theoretical approaches to media.

Keywords

• atmospheres
• experimental cinema
• photochemical materialism
• alchemy
• chymists
• radioactivity